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Meat & Seafood

Fresh meat from local family farms

Buying your beef, chicken and pork locally keeps local family farms in business. It helps the environment by minimizing shipping and maintaining local green spaces. It ensures freshness, and most people think that local food just tastes better.

That’s why Valley Natural Foods is proud to partner with the following local family farms:

  • Grazing Acres Bison & Beef in Elko New Market, Minn. (29 minutes from Valley Natural Foods)
  • Larry Schultz Chicken & Turkey from Owatonna, Minn. (45 minutes from Valley Natural Foods)
  • Ferndale Market Turkey in Cannon Falls, Minn. (45 minutes from Valley Natural Foods)
  • Eichtens Bison in Center City, Minn. (1 hour from Valley Natural Foods)
  • Hidden Stream Farm Pork in Elgin, Minn. (1.3 hours from Valley Natural Foods)
  • Blooming Prairie Natural and Grass-Fed Beef in Blooming Prairie, Minn. (2 hours from Valley Natural Foods)

In addition to benefiting local farms and keeping money in the community, farms that we partner with must abide by standards that ensure the quality and safety of the product. Their methods of growth and production also must be humane. Any producer must be verified and documented to ensure:

  • Animals are humanely raised
  • Animals have access to clean air, sunlight and pasture
  • Animals have 24-hour access to water
  • Herds and flocks are not overcrowded
  • Farms have clean, well-bedded facilities
  • Partners are local producers or processors from a tri-state area (MN, WI, IA)
  • Meat is free of added hormones, antibiotics, fillers or dyes
  • Meat labeled as grass-fed is 100% grass-fed
  • Animals are processed in a local USDA inspected facility

All this means that you can bring quality food to your table and feel good about supporting local farms that do things the right way – naturally.

Sustainable seafood

Freshness and flavor may be the most important factors for the food you eat – and we understand that by offering many varieties of fish and shellfish in our frozen and raw fish cases. From snow crab to shrimp, from Canadian walleye to Alaskan sockeye salmon, we’ve got what you need for a tasty seafood feast.

Valley Natural Foods also knows that maintaining the health of our world’s fish population is vital to ensure that there will be seafood for generations to come. That is why our meat department only buys seafood that meets standards set by organizations such as Seafood Watch and FishChoice.com. We check the standards upon bringing in new varieties, and constantly re-check our current offerings to make sure they still rate “good” or better.

We prefer all of our seafood options to be wild caught. Sustainable wild fishing helps prevent pollution and the use of antibiotics. Certain farm-raised fish and shellfish are raised sustainably and ecologically, and we offer those choices, as well.

So whether you’re just looking for fresh fish for dinner or want to make better seafood choices with the future in mind, our knowledgeable Meat & Seafood staff can help you make your selection.